


Making a Life

by JulyStorms



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4900018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cactus was a gift from Tsunemori.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making a Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cellorocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellorocket/gifts).



> "We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give."  
> -Winston S. Churchill
> 
> Based on [this post](http://cellostargalactica.tumblr.com/post/130152542862/headcanon).

The office looked as it always had from the outside, but Ginoza Nobuchika hesitated over the threshold anyway, feet asking to drag against the floor rather than cross over. He could see from the doorway that the only open desk had belonged, until very recently, to his father. Perhaps it always would. The angle of the monitor, the probably-empty can just to the right of it, the screwdriver with its faded blue handle that had appeared the day his father had lost his arm: all of these things screamed Masaoka Tomomi.

He approached the desk carefully, breath tight in his chest. Seeing it was harder than he had expected it to be.

There was a box on the chair—his own things, no doubt, waiting for him, collected carefully from his old desk.

He lifted the box and took its place, settling it on his lap afterward—and then he let out the breath he’d been holding, the one that had started to feel frozen in his lungs. He hated that this desk was his, now, and this chair, and the empty can and everything else—

But when Tsunemori had asked him about it, he…

He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of anyone else getting it.

Or of anyone else clearing it out, going through his father’s few office possessions as if they could determine what was worth keeping and what was garbage.

He forced his fingers to relax their white-knuckled grip on the box, and as he’d been practicing, lately, he made himself take a deep breath.

That was when he saw it—a flash of green on the desk. Curiosity compelled him to lift his gaze, as he remembered having seen nothing of the sort in the room before, least of all here on a desk his father had occupied for many years.

It was an innocuous little potted thing, green and needled, nestled between the keyboard and monitor. He wondered where it had come from.

He wondered what it meant.

He hesitated again, lips pressed into a thin line, and turned his head. Tsunemori was watching him from her desk on the far end, expression expectant—as if she’d known he’d look to her for an answer. She smiled and lifted her hand, wriggling her fingers at him in a friendly little wave.

So it was from her, then.

He didn’t know what to make of that. But he left it there as he took his own things out of the box and moved to fill it again with his father’s things—the ones he couldn’t bear to keep out because it would hurt to be forced to think about them.

But the screwdriver stayed, tucked into a drawer just out of sight but still close at hand. How ironic it was, he thought, and how terrible, that it was the one thing his father had left there that he could not only use, but may actually need.

* * *

 

The moment Hinakawa left the office, closing the door softly behind him, Tsunemori spoke.

Her voice was almost too loud in the otherwise-empty room: “I don’t know much about plants, but I know that you like them.” By the time he looked up from his work, she had paused her own and was blinking at him, a small smile lifting her mouth.

“I do,” he admitted.

Her smiled widened. “Good. I’m glad. I’m sorry it’s a cactus and not something prettier. It’s just—”

“I like it,” he interrupted, and glanced to the little cubby where he’d placed it so that it would be safe from potentially clumsy coworkers and closer to his own eye-level when he was sitting down.

“Yeah?” she asked, resting an elbow on her desk and letting her chin fall against her hand. “I thought it would be best, since we might end up busy on a case…”

“Ah,” he said, understanding. “Something unlikely to die if it goes a day or two without water, then.”

She nodded, looking pleased. “They’re very resilient, you know.”

_Like you_ , he thought but couldn’t bring himself to say. A sound of affirmation was what he settled on, instead.

“I thought something new would be nice,” she added, eyes turning back to her monitor, fingers stroking across the keyboard, seeking home row.

It was nice of her to think of him. Kind, even. He appreciated it more than he could express to her properly. He didn’t need to ask her why she would bother. That she _had_ —it was enough.

“Thank you,” he said, and turned back to his own computer, his words softening as he did so: “very much.”

Her pleasant, warm, “You’re welcome,” in response nearly made him smile. 


End file.
